A Kitchen Crafted with Care

Sandpaper, stain and generous use of salvaged wood add brilliant form and function to a modest-size kitchen

When they first entered the 10x12-foot kitchen of the Arts and Crafts–inspired house they purchased in Englewood, New Jersey, architect John Clagett and his wife, Leslie, saw white walls, white-painted cabinets and a scuffed linoleum floor. "The house, built sometime in the 1930s, had been altered in the 1950s and then again just before we bought it," says John. The most recent alteration involved splashing glossy paint on the natural pine cabinets and trim. "The paint was peeling even as we moved in," he adds.

John's redesign did not alter the existing layout, he says, "but Leslie and I struggled a lot deciding where to put the refrigerator. The previous owners had positioned it in front of one of the windows, but if we had done that, the room would have been pretty dark." The Clagetts' solution: Move their refrigerator/freezer to the basement, where it mostly stores frozen foods. To replace it for routine use, they bought an undercounter model, and John designed a cabinet to house it, allowing it to float in the middle of the room. For this unit and the drawers and open shelves on the cooking wall, John used salvaged Southern pine stained a cherry tone. Its graining and color were a match for the original pine floor, which the couple restored and darkened.

"We pulled up two layers of linoleum, some of it already crumbling," Leslie recalls. "Then John and I removed the staples." These were there to supplement the adhesive that had to be scraped off before the floor could be sanded and stained. "Our flooring repair man, Gary Horvath [of ATC Hardwood Flooring in Bergenfield, New Jersey], had to patch two places—one where the old steam radiator had been, under the windows, and one where water damage had occurred, under the old sink cabinet," she says.

"Our kitchen has two windows on one wall—they were the room's only source of daylight," John points out. "We didn't replace the frames, but we did replace the glass. I had to use a blowtorch to remove the old putty. Then we installed acid-etched glass in all but four openings. It diffuses our view of near neighbors and also softens the harsh sunlight pouring in." Adds Leslie, "The clear glass panels frame the bird feeder that hangs outside, between the two windows."

Supplementary kitchen lighting comes from an overhead fixture that John designed and mounted on the 9-foot-high ceiling. Parts of it house fluorescent tube uplights concealed within troughs; other parts provide bonus storage—a plus for a kitchen with minimal shelf and counter space.

What John created for Leslie is a kitchen that's simple and responsive to her needs. "I wanted something that would work with me, that I didn't have to conform to," she explains. "By now I really know how I cook, how I work in a kitchen. I didn't want it to be grand, but I did want to make sure it wouldn't stand apart from me."

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